Home for Christmas (29 page)

Lydia agreed that it was not. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to go over there too.

Harry Allen, son of Edith whom they’d taken home in an ambulance, and the eldest of her eight children, caught up with them at the corner. He tipped his cap at Lydia when he wished her good day, but his eyes were for Agnes.

‘Yer mam said you weren’t home from work yet, but I thought I’d wait around until you were. Still feels funny to think you’ve got a job driving a car.’

‘Well, you’d better get used to it,’ Agnes stated, her chin held high and her hair billowing out behind her.

‘That woman seems to appreciate you as her driver, and that’s a fact. Job for life, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘No. It’s not going to be a job for life, Harry. In fact, tomorrow will be my last day. I’m off to train to be an ambulance driver after that. Not that I need to learn how to drive, but I do need to learn a bit about first aid and all that. I’m off to the front. That’s where I’m going.’

Harry Allen’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re a one, Agnes Stacey. And there was me thinking I’d be leaving you behind. I joined up today. First Middlesex Fusiliers – or at least I think it’s Middlesex. Could be Essex. I never was much good at geography and me memory ’as never been that special. Not that it matters much. Seems to me we might end up seeing a fair bit of each other. If we’re lucky, that is. Now wouldn’t that be something.’

‘Us meeting up wouldn’t be lucky, Harry. I shall be driving an ambulance. It’s not a good thing if you meet up with me because it means you’re injured. Now that wouldn’t be lucky, would it?’

Harry looked crestfallen. ‘I suppose so.’ He switched his enquiring gaze to Lydia. ‘Are you joining the military nurses, Miss Lydia? Would I be likely to bump into you over there?’

Lydia had been only half listening. She’d noticed what Agnes and Harry had been saying, thinking that perhaps if she did enrol as a military nurse, it was one way of being a little bit closer to Robert.

‘I already work at a hospital. No doubt we’ll receive a lot of injured there, that’s besides filling in the gaps for those who do leave.’

Harry fell into an awkward silence before saying finally, ‘That’s a German hospital where you are, ain’t it? I mean, it might get closed down …’

‘That would be ridiculous,’ snapped Lydia. ‘We help anyone who comes to the hospital, no matter what their race, colour or religious persuasion. And that’s the way it should be. We have to remain neutral.’

Harry looked crestfallen. She offered her apologies for snapping.

‘I hate war,’ she said to him, her fine eyebrows frowning, her hands clasped tightly, fingers interlocked. ‘War is murder, and that’s all there is to it.’

Agnes squeezed her arm. ‘He’ll be all right, Lydia. He’s a good flier. The best there is, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Although she appreciated her sympathy, it unnerved Lydia that perhaps Agnes could read her mind.

‘War! Why is it that men get all excited at the mention of war?’ she said, shaking her head disapprovingly.

‘Because it is exciting,’ said Harry, his calm features animated. ‘We’ll give them Germans a drubbing, you just see if we don’t. I’ll be over there giving them what for … we’ll kill a load of them before they kill a load of us! Shoot them down in them Zeppelins and see them frizzle as they fall to the ground!’

He didn’t notice Lydia’s pallor or the sudden rigidity in her shoulders, but Agnes did.

‘Harry Allen, I think we’ve had enough of this talk of war. We’re all going to do our bit, you fighting and me driving an ambulance. But let’s not get carried away. It isn’t a game. It’s a very serious affair and don’t you bloody forget it!’

Harry took on the hangdog expression he always did when Agnes put him down. With anyone else he would bounce back immediately, giving as good as he got. Agnes was a different matter. As a lad, he had always followed her around when she came to stay at her grandmother’s in Myrtle Street. As an adolescent, he’d been tongue-tied in her presence, and now, as a young adult, his first thought was to impress her, as any young man in love wanted to do. Not that Agnes appeared to have any interest in him. If he could look beneath the surface, he would know she did not love him. Having loved Robert Ravening, she would find it hard to love anyone else.

‘Your Mam’s cooking roast beef I reckon,’ said Harry, war forgotten as he tilted his nose upwards and sniffed. ‘Roast beef, potatoes, cabbage and carrots. Lovely. And spotted dick to follow.’

Both girls stopped in their tracks, Agnes bubbling with laughter.

‘How do you know that just from sniffing the air?’ she asked.

He grinned sheepishly at Agnes, and then winked at Lydia. ‘It’s a knack.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Agnes. ‘Come on, Lydia. I’m starving.’

Harry followed them through the side alley and round the back of the house.

‘And where do you think you’re going?’ said Agnes, slamming her hand hard across his chest before he had chance to pass through the back gate.

‘Sunday roast. Yer Mam invited me and whilst I was thinking it over, she told me what was cooking.’

Agnes slapped him playfully. ‘Cheeky bugger!’

They all laughed as they made their way along the narrow path through the back yard, dodging the line of washing as they did so. Even Lydia had to admit he was a cheeky so and so, though in her heart there was a strong yearning that had not been there before. Up until the moment Agnes informed her she had joined up as an ambulance driver, she had not considered leaving the hospital and doing the same. It was foolish to think she might meet up with Robert over there, but just the prospect of being nearer to where he was flying made her heart beat faster. She did not regret that night with him, hoped it wouldn’t be their last night together, but until then the memory still burned bright.

Although the kitchen was smaller and steamier than what she’d been used to when she worked for Sir Avis, Sarah Stacey had everything under control.

Saucepans bubbled on the old range and the sound of something spitting and sizzling came from the hot oven.

Agnes’s grandmother, Ellen, had laid the table with an ill-matched assortment of plates and cutlery. Some of it was her own and some bits and pieces given to Sarah – oddments from the kitchens at Heathlands and the house in Belgravia.

Agnes grabbed a ladle and beat it against the side of a saucepan. Taken by surprise, her mother stopped peering into another saucepan and stared at her daughter, the steam plastering her hair against her forehead.

‘Right everyone. I have an announcement to make. Mother? Gran?’

Both women stopped what they were doing, though Sarah did replace the lid on the saucepan and turned her face from the steam.

‘I’m leaving my job driving old Mrs Pinchpenny around.’ They all smiled at the pet name she’d given her employer; Mrs Nickleby wasn’t known for being overly generous. ‘I’ve joined an ancillary unit being sent over to France to take care of the army. It’s behind the lines – well, most of the time. I’m going to drive an ambulance!’

Sarah Stacey collapsed on to a kitchen chair with an almighty thump. Ellen Proctor covered her gap-toothed mouth with one hand, eyes wide with surprise.

‘Agnes! Whatever made you do it?’ Sarah Stacey said in a cracked voice, looking as though she were going to burst into tears at any minute.

‘I’m not like you, Mam. I can’t settle to a life of cooking and cleaning. You already know that.’

‘But you was already drivin’ a car,’ said her grandmother. ‘Weren’t that enough fer yer?’

Agnes looked calmer and more confident than anyone had ever seen her. Even her mother felt diminished by the look of her, the set of her chin, the firm resolve that seemed to cover her from head to toe.

‘No. I want adventure in my life, and why shouldn’t I have it?’

‘You’re a woman,’ said her mother. ‘And a very young one at that,’ she added, her fingers twisting her apron in her lap, such was her tension and fear.

Unnerved by her daughter’s determined stance, Sarah Stacey remembered a time when she too had thought she could conquer the world. Things hadn’t worked out like that, but perhaps they would for Agnes? No matter her youth, she looked like a woman who knew what she wanted, someone in charge of her own life and destiny.

‘
He
wouldn’t have said that,’ Agnes said pointedly, her eyes bright with confidence. ‘
He
would have encouraged me, told me that in the modern world gender no longer mattered. I could be what I wanted to be if I wanted it enough.’

Sarah Stacey flinched. Agnes was referring to Sir Avis, the man who had fathered her and had been a huge influence on her life. Closing her eyes and muttering something indistinguishable, she covered the lower half of her face with her hands. She might have sobbed if it hadn’t been for her own mother, Ellen Proctor, patting her on the shoulder.

‘Reap as you sow, our Sarah. I said that to you a long time ago that you reap as you sow; he was always bound to be a force in our Agnes’s life. There was always bound to be something of him in her. It’s only natural. She gets it from ’im. Could be worse. Could be like he was with women …’

‘Mother!’ Sarah sprang to her feet. ‘Time to dish up.’

Harry Allen didn’t have much of a clue as to what they were on about, but put in his penn’orth anyway.

‘And I’ve joined up too. Remember that, Mrs Stacey. I’ll be there to protect her.’

‘I’m glad to ’ear it, me boy,’ said Agnes’s grandmother.

‘More like me looking after him.’ Agnes grinned as she said it and even her mother managed to laugh.

Lydia ate sparingly. Her thoughts were in turmoil and she couldn’t help feeling an infectious excitement the others had generated in her. Could she bear to leave the hospital? Could she bear to leave her father?

Immersed in her thoughts, she didn’t really engage with what was happening around her, until Agnes’s grandmother pointed a fork in her direction and asked her what was up.

‘Yer father’s not ill is he?’ she asked quizzically before she popped a roast potato into her mouth whole.

Lydia shook her head. ‘No. He’s fine, thank you.’

Ellen Proctor beamed, her cheeks ballooning and falling, as she rolled the potato from side to side in her mouth.

Her liking of Lydia was genuine and she was like a hound on the scent; she knew something was troubling the girl.

When the meal was finished, Agnes and her mother dealt with the washing up. Harry had the job of putting it all away though Lydia would have done so if Agnes’s grandmother hadn’t asked if she’d give her a hand getting in the washing.

With a mouthful of pegs clenched in the gap in her teeth, Ellen Proctor asked Lydia what was troubling her.

‘And don’t say nothing’s troubling you, ’cause you look as though you’ve picked up a tanner and lost a five pound note.’

Lydia bit her upper lip with her lower teeth. ‘I was thinking about nursing soldiers, you know, over in France. I know there’s a call out for good nursing staff to join Queen Alexandra’s and others as well, but …’

Ellen looked at her over the sheet they were now folding, noticing the concern in her eyes and the deep frown.

‘You’re worried about that young man of yours; of course you are. Only natural.’

‘Robert? Yes, though that’s not all of it.’

Ellen tipped two fingers up under the peak of her cap so it sat further back on her head.

‘Our Agnes had a yen for that young man of yours. Course, it could never be. It wouldn’t have worked, him being from a different class. I hope it works for you, that I do. You’ve no airs and graces – you proves that by coming ’ere and staying with us. You accepts us and, I have to say, I hope that you and Agnes remains friends when you marry. That would be nice.’

‘Yes. It would be.’

Ellen tipped her head to one side. ‘That ain’t what’s worrying you, is it?’

She shook her head.

‘Care to tell me? Promise,’ she said, crossing her copious chest. ‘I won’t tell a soul.’

‘I’m not sure what will happen to me and my father. My father’s German and my mother was English, so I’m not sure if a military nursing corps will accept me. They may consider my loyalties might lie with my father’s country.’

Ellen stuck her broad fists on her wide hips. ‘Well, I never. Of course you are anxious, but then, your dad’s a doctor and ’as been ’ere for years. Is that not so?’

Lydia nodded.

‘And you’re a bit of both. Your mother was English. Anyway, aren’t we counting the chickens before they’re hatched? Your father’s a well-respected man so I hear tell. In addition, a nob at that … begging your pardon, but you’re a nob as well. You’ll be fine no doubt. Sorry,’ she said suddenly, ‘I shouldn’t have pointed out the obvious differences. You’re welcome ’ere young Lydia, and you always will be.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Anyway, is it only the military likely to be nursing over there? What about Christian organisations and that? What about nuns? What about the Quakers? They always get involved in wars even though they don’t fight in them.’

Before Lydia left for the nurses’ hostel, Agnes made her promise to meet up the following day.

‘My last before I go for training,’ Agnes reminded her.

Twilight was falling on Myrtle Street, but in the warm late summer kids still played with bent old pram wheels, attaching them to orange boxes and making them into dandies, as they called them. Neighbours chatted, laughed and made rude jokes that they shouted out from one to the other. Every so often somebody mentioned that so and so’s son had joined up, or that there were rumours of rationing.

Some comments were scathing and to the point. ‘What do they think we’re on now? Smoked salmon and plum pudding every bleedin’ day?’

The flypaper man wandered past, a number of his sticky papers hanging from his hat, singing the same old song and thanking God no doubt that the weather was warm and flies were plentiful.

Catch ’em alive, them tormenting flies …

Flies! Dead flies, Lydia thought grimly. Soon it would be men. God help them, their dead bodies wouldn’t be as numerous as dead flies.

Lydia made a last-minute decision to go home rather than back to the hostel. She needed to speak to her father about what might be best for her to do. He wouldn’t be expecting her, but that didn’t matter. They had a lot to talk about.